World's Worst Products - Canned whole chicken

In a topic on Home Cooking about how to use canned Costco chicken. I was about to post my homage to canned chicken and its versatility when someone asked what to do with canned whole chicken.

I never heard of such a thing and this kind of food insanity appeals to me so I Googled and yes indeed there is such a product ... Sweet Sue Whole Chicken in a Can for use in soups, stews and for quick dinners.

In this link where you can purchase the chicken on-line, there is a picture on the can of a lovely browned bird ... with stuffing ... that your gut feeling tells you isn't what you'll see when you open the can.

I am also very put off by the idea of a whole canned chicken. Especially in light of the fact that they're usually on sale and, at worst, you could just roast one up in an hour. Or, boil one up in even less time.

But, who knows, maybe there is a particular character to this version. Has anyone tried it?

Yes, I have. It is not wonderful and does not have a great deal of flavor, but .......I used to keep one aboard our sailboat for emergencies. When sailing away from land for ten days or more, fresh food stocks get pretty low. Having a chicken on hand can make a difference at mealtime. Because it is packed with so much goo, I found the best use to be a kind of soupy stew, with strong flavorings (ginger or chile). It is especially welcoming on a rainy winter afternoon when you're chilled to the bone.

With the availability of a real kitchen, I cannot imagine a use for this product other than as emergency rations.

I tried one once on an extended camping trip. While I don't have memories of it being horrible, I had no inclination to try it again. Instead I bought whole frozen chickens, let them thaw in the cooler and then cooked them in the pressure cooker.

I suspect this whole canned chicken came on the market before the deboned, chunk chicken did (60's or earlier), and retains a limited regional following.

I've lived in parts of the world where the availabilty of any kind of fresh meat is iffy on any given day, or even any given week. Shredded, canned chicken can be gussied up in many casseroles, and/or ethnic dishes. If you're truly desperate, being a food snob falls by the wayside.

I know this topic is old, but my husband (a former sous chef and definite food snob) loves the canned shredded chicken from Trader Joe's. He makes it into chicken salad with a little mayo, dijon, salt and pepper and then totes the sandwiches to work. I was skeptical, and I don't like it as much as fresh chicken, but it's not horrible. My favorite way to make chickn salad by the way, is from fried chicken (used to do this with KFC when i was a kid). Mix it up, crust and all, with mayo, seasoned salt and some sweet pickle relish. oh my heaven!

Tripe is an excellent vehicle to carry sauces. Sliced and diced in soups it provides a pleasant texture provided you are not grossed out by eating it. Depending on the sheleteredness of your upbringing you may have similar disquietudes with liver, kidney, heart, chicken gizzard, cows hoof, brains, testicles, lung, sweetbreads, tongue and so on. This can to a great extent depend on your ethnicity and culture. And to give an example of this, many North Americans are very happy to eat a sausage made from mechanically scavenged meat stuffed into the membrane from a sheep's or pigs gut. Those same people will not eat haggis (since it is stuffed into a sheep's stomach) or tripe.

Tripe is fairly tasteless (as is most white fish and squid). But provided you can get your head round it it is a great ingredient in things like curries as the sauces fills and sticks to the cavities.

No, no, no! Canned bacon (the Danish kind, anyway) is perfectly fine. My aunt used to send me care pacakges of the stuff when I was living in Saudi Arabia years ago. Three years without a BLT would have been dreadful.

Fog City and Zydeco, I think you are looking for a product from Denmark, the name was Dak Canned Bacon prevalent in the 60s-70s, and one of my favorites. It was wound around waxed paper and the taste was superb. We would buy that over the bacon in supermarkets because of the rich smoky flavor. Denmark is famous for their bacon and ham products with good reason.

Last year I remembered that bacon and went on a quest to find it. I tracked down the original company in Denmark via e-mail (fun trying to communicate in our broken language signals - no arm waving to help us) to learn that Danish Crown had been sold to Plumrose, well known company in this country, and they don't make this product anymore, just the Dak ham in 1# cans you see advertised in the Sunday ads.

I spent hours searching this out and was really disappointed to find it no longer is produced. I doubt the camping products, also in cans, have anywhere the flavor but please let me know if you find a good one.

When I worked at a nationally recognized food-service supply company, I was surprised at the varying degrees of quality offered on each type of item while proofreading the catalog. I kept wondering if my favorite local restaurant ordered the "prestige" or the "economy" type of a certain product.

Then I found something that stopped me in my tracks:Chicken breast-shaped filets

Breast-SHAPED?? As in, what are they really, that you're making them LOOK like chicken breasts?!?